Sense8 finale changed how we see queer relationships

We are so distrusting on the concept of love nowadays. It’s easy to blame the political climate worldwide. Locally, we can easily blame “hugot culture” and its romanticization of unrequited love. It gets worse for members of the LGBTQ+ community and how media portrays love stories under the rainbow flag by having most of it end in death. It happens so often that it gave birth to the trope called “Bury Your Gays”, which honestly, doesn’t need further explanation. Not all queer love ends in tragedy. That’s why the beloved Netflix’s sci-fi serial Sense8ended more than just their show in their series finale last week —they also buried that toxic trope six feet underground.

Their finale entitled “Amor Vincit Omnia” comes from a quote by the poet Virgil. This is also a line uttered in the episode by Hernando Fuentes as he pretended to be a tour guide alongside our favorite cluster pretending to be wide-eyed tourists in Naples. He translates the phrase into English as “love conquers all things.” This just made the title for the show’s last adventure perfect to a tee. People have a lot of mixed emotions with the show’s final bow. But what they cannot deny is how the creators gave their characters, especially their queer characters, a happy ending they had worked hard to get. Mind you —their happy endings didn’t even feel forced.

After defeating the evil men who overtook BPO, an organization that originally existed to protect the Sensates kind, they closed the gruesome chapter behind them by having a wedding on the top of The Eiffel Tower of all places. Is there anything more romantic than The Eiffel Tower? And the wedding that was held there was none other than queer hackers extraordinaire Nomi Marks and Amanita Caplan. Nomi, arguably, had the most difficult coming out arc in the series. A huge factor was her bigoted parents remaining to deny her identity by continuing to call her Michael. There was no bigger f’ you to all her struggles and harassment than marrying the woman she loves in a place everyone fantasized of.

Other queer characters like Lito, and apparently, Riley had their happy endings with their respective partners too. It didn’t even stop showing us positive polyamorous relationships. In the previous episodes, we saw Amanita’s dads and her mother living healthily. The finale introduced us to Kala, Wolfgang, and Rajan having entered in one. The wedding wraps up in a huge celebration with an amazing remix of “Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing” by The Magnetic Fields. And we can’t forget about the orgy scene that might be lost to people who haven’t seen the show. But to those who are fans of the show, they couldn’t have ended the show better than that rainbow strapon as the last frame. Rainbow strapons aside, Sense8’s finale is a love letter to love’s broad spectrum. “We live in a world that distrusts feelings,” says Amanita as she recites her vows to Nomi. The most rebellious act that the show imparts us to trusts those feelings and see where they lead. Not all love ends in a sad, Facebook status. This goes especially for queer love stories —fictional or not. We don’t know about you guys, but Sense8 burying that toxic trope defines 20gayteen for us.